Music Monday (141): Pentatonix, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington, Lil Nas X, John Legend, Carrie Underwood

Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: I'm currently listening to Pentatonix's new holiday album, We Need A Little Christmas. I enjoyed all of the songs, but then again I should have expected it. Pentatonix's holiday albums are always a perfect way to set a festive mood. One of my favorite songs from it is Once Upon A December. This song is just lovely.  

  

Adri: I'm listening to Sugar Rum Cherry by Duke Ellington and Holiday by Lil Nas X.

Andrea: This week I'm listening to Hallelujah by Carrie Underwood and John Legend and Ave Maria by Stevie Wonder.

What are you listening to this week?

I Watched Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Story (2020)

It has been a while since I’ve been this excited to talk about a holiday movie, but Jingle Jangle deserves all the praise. This is probably one of my favorite movies released by Netflix to date, and it goes alongside others I’ve recently enjoyed—i.e. The Babysitters Guide to Monster Hunting and Vampires VS the Bronx. Jingle Jangle was fantastic, and it ticked all the boxes for everything I look for in a musical. It’s the kind of family-friendly movie that feels like it’s going to be a holiday classic, and in my opinion it more than has the potential to cross that threshold.

For a movie about a toymaker, the holidays, family, and stolen inventions, the story was just good. It was a magical adventure with steampunk notes. It seemed equal parts heartwarming, sad, but still all around fun and humorous. And even when there were some of the more emotional moments, the movie never quite lost its hopeful tone.

Jingle Jangle is very stylish movie. The casting decisions Netflix made were top-notch with picks such as Keegan-Michael Key from Key & Peele, Forest Whitaker, and Anika Noni Rose who voiced Tiana. Every actor was phenomenal in their roles, and as a result the characters came off as charming and joyous. The costuming as well as the set design was colorful, wintery and eye-catching—and it really set the mood for the movie.

Since Jingle Jangle is a musical, I was paying close attention to the aspects related to it. Well, the dance numbers were excellent, the music is just “chefs kiss,” and even after the credits were rolling, I was already thinking about listening to the songs again. The scene transitions were notable as well, especially between the talking parts and the singing/dance segments. It was so smooth that the overall impression left by Jingle Jangle is that the movie found its rhythm and kept it.

Jingle Jangle was fantastic. I can’t recommend it enough, and if you’re looking for a holiday movie to watch, then consider giving this one a try.

Also, check out the trailer….

ARC Review: Finished Off In Fondant by Rosemarie Ross

Title: Finished Off In Fondant
Series: Courtney Archer #2
Author: Rosemarie Ross
Source/Format: Netgalley; eARC
More Details: Cozy Mystery
Publisher/Publication Date: Kensington Publishing; December 1, 2020

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Hosting a reality cooking show could be the perfect career boost for Chef Courtney Archer--as long as the contestants aren't suspected of murder . . .

Despite a few early hiccups, Courtney is thrilled with her starring role on The American Baking Battle, filmed at a grand resort in the Pocono Mountains. The icing on the cake? The new season has a wedding theme--complete with formalwear. But the first day on set, the producer seems to care more about profits than pastry--and the topper comes when her cohost Skylar falls ill. Little does she know things are about to end in tiers . When a barely coherent, blood-covered Skylar is discovered at the doorway of his room, Courtney is horrified to walk inside and find a towering wedding cake--thoroughly smashed by the body of a woman in a bridal gown. Now suspicion is filling the studio and falling on Skylar, and Courtney has to look at coworkers and contestants, working through layers of deception to find the real culprit . . .

I was excited for Finished Off In Fondant. It’s been a while since I dived into a cozy mystery, and this one seemed like one I would like. Finished Off In Fondant was fine. I liked it. The characters were good, and the setting afforded for some interesting situations.

I liked the idea of Finished Off In Fondant, since it had a main character who was a host of a cooking competition as well as for her own show. It was a fun set up, and for the most part I did like the competition as well as the cooking aspects of the novel. I liked how much knowledge the character had about food, as it did come in handy. For the most part, I did like the cast of the characters. Courtney was interesting. Her situation was up-in-the-air for a while, as she had to come clean about her identity and the discrepancies of her on-air persona. So there was the possibility that her career could take a hit. So there was some tension in the story before the mystery began. I also liked the side characters. They were interesting in their own right.

Now when it came to the mystery—the very thing that hooked me from the start—at times it seemed to take a backseat to the filming of the competition, and the actual investigative portions seemed few and far in-between for much of the story. There was more speculation than anything else, and a lot of time was spent on other characters telling Courtney to mind her own business. That’s a common thing I’ve come across in most cozy mysteries I’ve read, and the characters always kind of disregarded that. However, Courtney did stumble onto some clues, but I wish the development of the mystery was more present than it was.

Overall, Finished Off In Fondant was fine.

About the author....

Rosemarie Ross is neither a chef, gourmet cook, nor television cooking star, but she loves watching them and turned that love into a cozy mystery series. Rosemarie Ross is also the pseudonym of multi-published author Rose Ross Zediker, who writes contemporary and historical inspirational romance novels.

Disclaimer: This copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Kensington) via Netgalley for this review, thank you!

Music Monday (140): Tkay Maidza, Charlie Wilson, Smokey Robinson

  

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: Two weeks ago, I mentioned I was listening to a Mixtape called Last Year Was Weird Vol.2. Well, I finally checked out Last Year Was Weird Vol.1, and I love it as much as Vol.2. One of my favorite songs from it is Lullabies. 

Andrea: This week I'm listening to All of My Love by Charlie Wilson featuring Smokey Robinson.

 

What are you listening to this week?

Short Stories I Read In October...

It’s the twenty-ninth of November, so it’s time to talk about the short stories, miscellaneous posts, and podcast episodes I read or listened to in October.

Juvenilia by Lavie Tidhar (Uncanny; Issue Thirty-Six, September/October 2020)

The first story I read in October was Juvenilia by Lavie Tidhar. I really enjoyed this story. Coming on the heels of reading Mexican Gothic, many aspects of Juvenilia reminded me of that story. There was a little mystery as well as some genuinely creepy moments—and the atmosphere and way the story went reminded me of that achieved by Mexican Gothic—even though it wasn’t inherently a horror story. It was kind of a house story too, given that the setting primarily took place at a single property—Wildfell Hall—which was an integral part of the plot. It was well-developed with an eerie atmosphere and an equally odd set of rules the character was asked to follow. Overall, Juvenilia was a fantastic story. 

Hearts in the Hard Ground by G.V. Anderson (Tor.com; September 9, 2020)

Feeling in the mood for another house/ghost story, I decided to check out something that had been on my radar since September. Hearts in the Hard Ground is an incredibly somber tale of a haunted house and the woman who moved-in. There were themes of loss and grief, and it was in the form of the character’s mother having suffered from an illness before passing away. Fiona’s story was an excellent read. Her journey was one filled with memoires and ghosts, as she tried to make a home of the house she’d moved in to. In a lot of ways, this was a story about navigating grief and about places being haunted as well as people being haunted by their memories: of what’s happened and the choices they did or didn’t make. It was about coming to terms with and accepting the “would have” and the “could have,” and the secrets and fears. And while some of the ghosts were charming, the house, for the most part, was suitably frightening with spirits that refused to—or simply couldn’t—rest. 

From around the web…

• A Children’s Tale for All Ages: Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah Baker (Alex Brown; Tor.com, October 6, 2020)
• A Question of Horror: Stephen Graham Jones’ Night of the Mannequins (Tobias Carroll; Tor.com, October 8, 2020)
• Our Opinions Are Correct episode #68
• Fangirl Happy Hour episode #131